The sport of high wheel riding was introduced to the United States from England in the late 1870s. In its first decade, it was an elitist, fringe sport. American cyclists were predominately well-to-do young men daring enough to mount high wheelers—bikes with a large front wheel and tiny rear wheel. In 1892, Frank Lenz, an accountant turned long-distance cyclist from Pittsburgh, set off on a solo around-the-world tour to promote the “safety bicycle,” a successor to the high wheeler and precursor to today’s road bike that would ultimately spark the great, turn-of-the-century bicycle boom and transform cycling into a popular sport. In his new book, The Lost Cyclist, bike historian David V. Herlihy tells the story of Lenz, his mysterious disappearance in a volatile part of east Turkey and the ensuing investigation led by William Sachtleben, a fellow cyclist who succeeded in circumnavigating the world by bike.

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This studio portrait of Frank Lenz was taken May 1892, most likely in Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts. Soon after, Outing magazine hired him as a correspondent.
(Courtesy of David V. Herlihy)

Shown here are Thomas Allen, left, and William Sachtleben, right, in 1892 in China.
(Courtesy of David V. Herlihy)

Lenz, second from left, his cycling buddy Charles Petticord, far left, and two friends take a break in New Concord, Ohio, in August 1890. The group was riding high wheelers from Pittsburgh to St. Louis along the National Road.
(Courtesy of David V. Herlihy)

Fellow cyclists Allen, left, and Sachtleben, right, in a London studio in September 1890, announce their plan to circle the globe by bike.
(Courtesy of David V. Herlihy)

Allen and Sachtleben greet onlookers outside the gate to Teheran, Iran, on October 5, 1891. “He [Sachtleben] certainly recognizes right away that travel by bicycle was a very intimate way to experience a culture,” says David V. Herlihy.
(Courtesy of David V. Herlihy)

Upon their return to the United States in the spring of 1983, Allen and Sachtleben are celebrated in the pages of Bearings magazine.
(Courtesy of David V. Herlihy)

Lenz sent this letter, written en route to Japan, to his step-uncle Fred. “I think he starts out with some cockiness,” says Herlihy. “He thinks he is going to breeze through China in two months, but, of course, it takes him about seven.”
(Courtesy of David V. Herlihy)

A crowd gathers around Lenz, stopped on the Tokaido Road, connecting Tokyo to Kyoto, Japan. “Lenz was a magnet just because he was a Westerner,” says Herlihy. “But on top of that, to have this very curious vehicle with him meant that inevitably he’d be surrounded by locals wanting to see him demonstrate the wheel.”
(Courtesy of David V. Herlihy)

Lenz impresses a group of Chinese with his knack for using chopsticks.
(Courtesy of David V. Herlihy)

Lenz poses in a studio in Calcutta, India, in the fall of 1893.
(Courtesy of David V. Herlihy)

This is the last known photo of Lenz. The crown prince of Persia took it in Tabriz, in April 1894, about two weeks before his death. “He really does look like someone who has aged quite a bit. He certainly could have been in a weakened state by the time he gets to Turkey,” says Herlihy. “But my gut feeling is that Lenz was killed.”
(Courtesy of the Seaver Center for Western History Research, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles)

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What drew you to this story? It’s been about 20 years since I first delved into bicycle history. I was familiar with the [bicycle] boom-era literature of the 1890s. Lenz is a name that comes up a fair amount. In the summer of 1890, he rode to St. Louis along the National Road from Pittsburgh. Then, in August 1891, he rode from Pittsburgh to New Orleans. But of course when he embarked on this around-the-world journey, he became quite the celebrity. When he disappeared in Turkey a few years later, he became even more famous. I knew there was a mystery surrounding him and found him an intriguing character. But I also knew, as well known as he was in the 1890s, he was completely forgotten afterwards.

Lenz’s accounts of his pedal across North America and Asia, published by his sponsorOutingmagazine, had, as you say in the book, “an intimacy only a cyclist could enjoy.” So what intimacies did bike touring allow that other travel up until that point hadn’t? Sachtleben talked about how there is such a thing as too much comfort in traveling. In his time, only the wealthy took European tours. Typically, they traveled by luxury steamer and coach, with servants and trunks in tow. You don’t have any of that when you’re traveling by bike. You are not insulated. You’re there. You’re vulnerable. The bicycle really brings you to the people. You can’t help but interact with them. Lenz, too, recognized that travel by bicycle was a very intimate way to experience a culture. Both men became magnets for unwanted attention, not just because they were Westerners in foreign lands, but also because their vehicles were new and wondrous to the locals, who often demanded riding demonstrations.

How did you go about digging up his story? About ten years ago, I curated a bicycle history exhibit that toured several museums. I had included a photo of Lenz in China on his bicycle. When the exhibit was up at the Springfield Science Museum in Massachusetts, I got a call or an e-mail from a young man named John Herron. He wanted me to know that he had a scrapbook full of photos taken by Lenz. It was something like 80 pages long, with very faded photos mostly of the world tour.

I also understood that the National Archives had files relating to the search for Lenz conducted by the State Department. Confident that I could find enough material for a book, I was ready to plunge right into the Lenz research. But I took the advice of an acquisitions editor at Yale University Press and wound up putting the Lenz project on the back burner to write my book Bicycle: The History.

Sometime around 2005, I was finally ready to focus on Lenz. I soon came across another collection of photos owned by John Lenz, who descends from one of Frank’s step-uncles. These photos were largely complementary to the ones in the scrapbook because they were mostly from Lenz’s pre-world trip days, when he rode the high wheeler.

As my research progressed, I realized that there was yet another interesting untold story about William Sachtleben, the cyclist who went looking for Lenz. I found lots of good material on him, too, and I concluded that I should really tell both these stories simultaneously.

I felt reasonably satisfied after four years of intense research that I’d gotten the story about as complete as it could be without some major new discovery. There are always a few loose ends, and I’m fully expecting and hoping that new stuff comes out. I’m convinced that somewhere out there are letters Lenz sent home. John Lenz has two letters written by Lenz himself during the world tour, but I know there were many more. Hopefully the book creates more of a collective memory of Frank. Maybe it will jar somebody’s memory, and they’ll remember they have a trunk upstairs.

So, Lenz—well-intentioned pioneer or reckless adventurer with a death wish? That’s hard to say exactly. I think he started out with some cockiness. But I do have the sense that he matured during this trip and became a little more prudent along the way. So I don’t think he had a death wish.

A near-death experience he had in China seems to have had a very sobering effect on him. In an interview he gave shortly afterwards, Lenz was asked to explain the purpose of his trip. Though the original stated objective was to promote the new safety bicycle, and there were obvious advertising interests behind it, Lenz truly seems to have sensed a higher mission. He talked about how it would prove “that there is a fraternal feeling among the human race,” and that “with civilization comes tolerance, and a more sympathetic appreciation of fellow men among all nations.”

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